Con-ri-sonanza
A new CD of chamber music by Thomas Simaku performed by internationally renowned musicians was released by the Swedish label BIS Records on 6 November 2020.
The works were all composed in the last decade and are interconnected at various levels, as are the sonic qualities embedded in the title of the CD: consonanza, risonanza, con risonanza.
Professor Thomas Simaku has collaborated with the Paris-based Quatuor Diotima for more than a decade now; and his collaboration with the British pianist Joseph Houston, now based in Berlin, began when Houston was an undergraduate at York.
The string quartets Nos. four and five were written especially for Quatuor Diotima who premiered them at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in 2011 and 2015 respectively. Catena I for solo piano received its premiere at the 2019 Moderne Muziek Nijmegen Festival in The Netherlands, Hommage à Kurtág was premiered in Barcelona, whereas L’image oubliée d’après Debussy was commissioned by the York Late Music Series 2018 to mark Debussy's centenary.
The musicians come together in the piano quintet, con-ri-sonanza – Bill Colleran in Memoriam, which was also premiered at the 2019 Moderne Muziek Nijmegen Festival.
Open access recordings
String Quartet No 5.
Con-ri-sonanza for piano and string quartet.
Featured researcher
Thomas Simaku
Professor Simaku is and active composer with research interests in composition, European modernism, contemporary music, East-European musical aura - aspects of modality and its integration into western contemporary idioms.